Matilda (on Sunday)

‘In fifteen years, I’ve missed church one time,’ Mattie thought as she applied make-up in thick coats to her oddly shaped, oblong face. It was a practice she mastered as a small girl before Sunday school and for years after. She studied her make-up like she studied her bible, religiously. And she had bright colors and flowery, springtime scents. She had gaudy bejeweled rings and bracelets that clinked when she moved her arms. She was a rather round woman, who took big heavy steps that she pushed her way through. Her hair was a brownish cinnamon color, but also bright from years of hair dye. In fact everything about her was bright and big and prominent. She was always best at making herself known.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought, ‘I will stand out and be noticed and respected for this’, but she let the thought pass without giving it any attention. She thought that same thing every week, but was not quite conscious of it. The custom for widowers was to be in mourning for around a year. Wear black and dreary colors. Then after a year, fashion was fair game. Most women (or men for that matter) dressed up after about a year and kept dressing up until they were married again. Mattie thought it best to play the part, though she really had no desire to remarry. She always thought it best to play the part, whatever the part entailed. People didn’t look at you strange if you played the part.

The great boat of an Oldsmobile in the driveway was rumbling softly and warming up and she carefully aimed her brightly colored rear end at the middle of the driver’s seat and let herself fall in. The car clunked and jolted down the long driveway to the road and she blessed Jesus that it hadn’t broken down in all the years it had been her own and then she accelerated and was gone.

Behind the house, at the edge of the barn a bush rustled and a few twigs cracked in the forest and out came Phabian Teague. He looked around the side of the house and up the road to see that Matilda had gone, and then he hurriedly hobbled around to the front carrying a duffle bag that rattled and clunked. He set the bag in the dirt and stood staring at the house for a moment trying to decide where to begin. Then he pulled two large stones from the barren lawn and heaved one of them through the window next to the front door.

“How’s ‘bout that, you nasty bitch?” he mumbled under his breath. Then he slung the other one through a window in the bedroom.

He picked up the duffle bag and unzipped it, spilling the contents on the lawn. All except a carton of one dozen eggs, which he carefully lifted out and held in his hand. He proceeded to open the carton and pummel the house with the eggs, breaking another window in the process. The rest of the bags’ contents consisted of spray cans in a variety of colors. He picked one out and shook it as he neared the front wall of the house. He popped the cap off and the first thing he scrawled in huge letters across the front door was “SINNER.”